If you live in an alternate universe and don’t believe that money equals speech and that corporations are people, consider signing the Mentor Move to Amend (MMTA) petition, part of a nationwide movement in US cities to restore financial accountability in our electoral process.

The goal of the initiative petition is to put the questions of corporate personhood and unregulated political contributions on the November 4, 2014 for the citizens of Mentor to decide their legality.

You can ask MMTA volunteers questions and sign the petition at Mentor Public Library, main branch parking lot, Saturday, July 6, from 9 AM to 5 PM.

Only voters registered in the State of Ohio and living in one of Mentor’s political wards may sign the petition.

OVERVIEW OF MENTOR MOVE TO AMEND

The money of SuperPacs, unions and corporations is now considered speech protected by the 1st Amendment and not able to be regulated!

Our amendment will restore the ability of the people to regulate money in political campaigns.

1. Unions, SuperPacs, corporations and other entities are not people. Only human beings are endowed with inalienable constitutional rights.

2. These entities are creations of the state — independent legal entities separate from the people who own, control, manage and work for them.

3. Since these legal entities are created by government, We the People have the right to regulate them — including their involvement in elections and politics.

5. Thousands of small businesses support reversing the Citizens United decision since it gives an unfair political advantage to huge companies.

6. Money is not speech. If money is speech, then those who have the most money have the most speech. That’s not a recipe for a democracy but for a plutocracy.

7. Our elections and our laws shouldn’t be decided by the companies and wealthy individuals that spend the most money lobbying and making political donations.

8. Our government is broken because the system is fixed – rigged to favor the interests of major corporations and wealthy individuals.

9. People have not only the right but also the duty to initiate social change.

10. The U.S. Constitution has been amended 27 times in history. Average people have initiated many of the movements (end of slavery, women’s right to vote, direct election of senators, etc.) that eventually led to the amendments.

We are a non-partisan group of Mentor citizens interested in a vibrant democracy that is genuinely accountable to the people.

We reject the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizen’s United ruling and call for an amendment to the U. S. Constitution to unequivocally state that inalienable rights belong to human beings only, not to SuperPacs, unions, corporations or other legally created entities and that money is not a form of First Amendment-protected free speech.

We believe that money can and should be regulated in political campaigns.

If you are interested in joining our group, contact Dave Lima at 255-4516 or email him at dlima@sbcglobal.ne